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Higher antibiotic resistance in China linked to drugs sold without prescription in pharmacies, as study shows most will sell antibiotics even without symptoms
- People in China have far more antibiotic resistant genes in their gut microbes than Europeans
- A study has shown that most pharmacies in China will sell antibiotics without a prescription
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Antibiotics are still being sold without a prescription all too readily in retail pharmacies in China, researchers warn.
Antibiotic abuse is a global problem, but is particularly prevalent in mainland China, where it is believed to have greatly increased the risk of superbugs that have become resistant to antibiotics, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection (MRSA).
Four years ago, at the 2016 G20 summit in China, officials from leading developed and developing countries laid out a plan to address antimicrobial resistance. A big first step was to make antibiotics prescription-only in pharmacies in all Chinese provinces by 2020.
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But a recent study published in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control found that antibiotics could be obtained without a prescription at 84 per cent of China’s retail pharmacies.
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Researchers at Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou surveyed 1,106 pharmacies in 13 Chinese provinces and found that 925 sold antibiotics without prescriptions.
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